Mailbag
By banning my acount its like you killed Santa Claus
all i was trying to do was spread joy just like him
On the matter of definitions and context
Recently we had a forumer argue with us over a moderation decision based on the definition of the word racist. The forumer argued that the term covered religion as well, so he was unfairly banned. He claims that a.) one meaning of racist is “Discriminatory especially on the basis of race or religion” and b.) that definition is in a recent edition of the OED. Let’s take a look.
From the mailbox and other things
Sometimes we get some amusing emails in our mailbox. Here’s one, for example:
ok since this is the path you have chosen then this is war. you have until wednesday at 1700 GMT to unban me. if you dont i will launch a glorius war against HG and i will make millions of smurfs and post full of porn and shit especially during offhours, and hopefully one of your sponsors will see some.
Yeah, okay.
Anyway, Soccy and I will be meeting this Saturday to discuss our plans of world domination wrapping up HG’s transition and moving its bank accounts and business address to Boston, as well as stuff about Cloud Nine, including functional specs and stuff. The functional spec outline itself says it’ll probably be about 19-20 chapters to cover all the modules and materials, but there’s still a lot of writing to be done … It should be interesting. Oh, I finally get to meet our financial guy.
Also, we’re well aware of the slow-server problem and are working to pinpoint what’s causing it while we wait for some tasks to be done before we can look into getting new servers. Unfortunately some of the areas we had identified as possible problems are dependent on what users are doing, where they’re doing it from and what software they’re doing it with, so I’m tweaking things one at a time to see if things improve or get worse. If things are drastically faster in the upcoming days, please let me know :)
Lastly, there’s a Battle of the Forums going on, hosted by our new marketing guy Baske. Check it out… it looks to be fun.
Oh, I’ve been hearing rumors of sightings of a White Rabbit hanging about HG…
Software Update
Blog software was updated. They changed the default theme from the previous version, and this is one of the better looking of the three until I find some time to skin this to look something HG-ish.
When I have time. *chuckles*
iDrama
Well, here we go again; a few days ago a staff member quit because blah blah blah freedom of speech blah blah blah I don’t play the game anymore blah blah blah so F--- the world blah blah blah f--- HG blah blah blah everythingsux okthxbye!
Are you serious?
Freedom of Speech is being able to express your ideas and opinions. Media professionalism, which staff requires, means you have to do that without dropping stuff like the f-bomb, checking your sources, and making sure you know both sides of the story, or at least did you best at trying to (nothing much else you can do when one side says “no comment.”). Yeah, it may be stereotypical for some to say, “but, dropping stuff like the f-bomb is part of popular gaming culture!” But it’s not the culture at HG, and we’re not about to start dropping f-bombs all over our site, so let’s just leave it at that.
Lastly, there’s no obligation for staff to stay staff. If a staffer have stopped playing games for good and want to shed his/her duties at HG, then be responsible and hand off those duties to someone who can take over, and then bid farewell. Don’t be immature and flame out in the forums in spectacular fashion.